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Windows XP Dies Final Death As Embedded POSReady 2009 Reaches End of Life (techrepublic.com)
New submitter intensivevocoder shares a report from TechRepublic: Extended support for Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 -- the last supported version of Windows based on Windows XP -- ended on April 9, 2019, marking the final end of the Windows NT 5.1 product line after 17 years, 7 months, and 16 days. Counting this edition, Windows XP is the longest-lived version of Windows ever -- a record which is unlikely to be beaten.
Despite the nominal end of support for Windows XP five years ago, the existence of POSReady 2009 allowed users to receive security updates on Windows XP Home and Professional SP3 through the use of a registry hack. Microsoft dissuaded users from doing this, stating that they "do not fully protect Windows XP customers," though no attempt was apparently made to prevent users from using this hack. With POSReady reaching the end of support, the flow of these security updates will likewise come to an end.
Despite the nominal end of support for Windows XP five years ago, the existence of POSReady 2009 allowed users to receive security updates on Windows XP Home and Professional SP3 through the use of a registry hack. Microsoft dissuaded users from doing this, stating that they "do not fully protect Windows XP customers," though no attempt was apparently made to prevent users from using this hack. With POSReady reaching the end of support, the flow of these security updates will likewise come to an end.
I'm pretty sure that most people on Slashdot know POS really stands for "Point of Sale". But I found it amusing to read through the whole summary with "Windows" and "POS" lumped together multiple time leading the read to their own inner dialogue as to meaning...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Embedded POSReady".... I don't even know where to start...I guess I'll start with Embedded POS.
Why would this amount to 'death'? If I had, for an example, a LabView system on my bench that ran on Windows XP, it wouldn't need to 'die' because it isn't networked to any other systems. There are lots of pieces of test equipment that embed various versions of Windows in them. At a previous job we had Unholtz-Dicke shaker tables. One had a Windows XP host, the other had a Windows 2000 host. They worked fine. They will continue to work fine.
MS gives a big FU to anyone who foolishly built a system on their OS. Let that be a lesson.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
There is a version of Win98 that is stripped down for embedded use that still runs just fine.
I built some 'forever' xp virtual machines, so it will never die
Are you overwriting the bios? Then it's not fucking bricked. Being XP era you could probably remove the eeprom and flash it yourself.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I thought Microsoft was just going to continue to enhance Windows 10 forever. That will certainly blow by the record set by XP.
Believe it or not, XP is much better than Windows 10.
At the very least, XP does not spy on the users.
ALSO, this should include everyone who has ever gotten a copy of XP, “free” with a new computer.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Has it?
There's been a few comparability breaking hardware changes that make me highly skeptical you could have continually updated a system that long.
Off the top of my head G5 -> x86 -> "x86-64
I wouldn't be shocked if there were some motherboard firmware changes required for the newest version since the first 64 bit x86 hardware too.
It may not be forever, but functionally forever. Imagine at what point the limitations imposed by 64-bit computing will necessitate switching to 128 bit.
The 8 bit era lasted a while, until production capacity for memory chips made them cheap enough to make people maxing out their installed RAM a real problem. Enter 16 bit computing with the Intel 80286 chip. (Yes, I know it wasn't their first, but it was the first mass-adopted.) That lasted a little while before the Intel 80386 took things, IIRC, into the 32 bit era, which lasted a couple decades. (I could be wrong on the numbers; it's been a while since I’ve thought about these things.)
In fact, Apple still hasn’t, as far as I know, made good on their threat yet to release an OS that doesn’t have the capability of running 32-bit binaries, though that day is nigh. I think Windows 10 still can run the lower bit-width software, though as I don’t USE Windows anymore... I cannot say for sure.
We might see 128 bit processors and memory addresses in our lifetime, but unless there is some quantum-leap in digital electronic technology that takes us as far beyond current technology as the transistor did beyond the vacuum tube, I’m not holding my breath.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Tell that to the display on the drive through at my local Jack in the Box. It's running some ancient embedded Windows shit. And it's been stuck on a failed check disk screen (the ol' blue and yellow one) for weeks, at around 37% or so, throwing an error I didn't even know existed (something about reaching the max size that version of checkdisk can check, and to run the check within Windows instead, I believe).
Their automated ordering kiosks used embedded XP, but they ripped those out a few years ago because they never worked right (BSOD half the time, their staff didn't know how to take an order from them in their existing system the other half of the time).
The only thing you can call dead at this point is possibly the Windows 3 series.
Why don't I use Win10 ? Well, I tried but the smallest VM I could produce is 60Gb, instead of 17Gb with XP. Try and send that via ftp... And other reasons is that I hate Win10 and also that many of the hardware drivers necessary in an industrial environment just won't install easily or at all due to tons of obscure 'security' settings that just get in the way. I know we've been complaining forever about the shitty security of Windows, but when they actually tighten shit up, it gets right in the way. And honestly, it's not like they've improved anything useful between XP and 10... I can't find a SINGLE thing that I would say: "That's nice, I wouldn't want to go without".
Non-Linux Penguins ?
As far as I know (but I never used the product), Windows POSReady 2009 allowed Internet Explorer 8 to be installed.
Does this mean that Internet Explorer 8 is now finally entering the unsupported realm?
I must give it to Microsoft, they do support previous versions of their web browsers. Unlike Google with Chrome, which just releases a new version every month but never patches an older version.
Firefox treads the middle ground with both a rapid-release branch (with explicit support for the previous version for a week or so) and an ESR branch.
Are there options for paid support like there were for general release of XP? If so, it isn't dead yet.
nt
Sure I made fun of it's default interface like a lot of other people as well as the standard Microsoft bashing. However compared to Windows 10 I felt like I was more in control of my computer and more importantly the look and feel didn't require third party updates out of the box to help keep me sane and my mother from being confused as to how the UI was designed. It even had a skin out of the box that made it look like Windows 2K/3.1 which really simplified things and helped the OS get out of the way more when it needed to.
How many people are still holding on to Windows for Workgroups 3.11?
Meanwhile, the oldest Linux kernel still supported is 3.16, first released in 2014.
If your server is still running Linux kernel 0.01 you are completely allowed (thanks to the copyleft GPL it is licensed under) to upgrade all the way to the current 5.1-rc4.
If your marchine is running Windows XP (and don't get me about Windows 2.0 or MS-DOS 2.0), you're hosed. You can't get updates for that version, and you need to buy a new "upgrade license" to get something newer. (though from time to time some of these upgrade are free).
From the point of view of how Windows is handled, Linux is a single product which only differs by build numbers.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Death to the PC.
Captcha: seconded
Not only is that legally impossible; it's also a a terrible idea.
Microsoft publishes their support lifecycle, and anyone can find out exactly how long their software will be supported. Occasionally they extend it (as was the case with XP), but they are not obligated to do so.
If treating the end of support like a drop-dead date makes their OS an unappealing purchase... then don't buy it.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
First Clippy, then MSN Messenger and now Windows XP. Is nothing sacred anymore, Microsoft?
I use an old pirated XP box to roam the internet. Newer been hacked, you only need some 3rd party firewall and different plugins for pale moon. No fucking updates.
They say it's dead, but you can still download a free, fully functional 32-bit version of XP encased in a virtual machine (Windows Virtual PC) from Microsoft's web site! It's called "Windows XP Mode."
Yeah, like Microsoft is the only software company or organization, ever, to deprecate a version.
*Rolls Eyes*
FWIW, I worked connecting more than 50 external EMRs to our pharmacy. We could totally write a custom interface to get your info into a reporting system. We had to do this for multiple daisy chained HL7 systems connecting to a PLC robotic dispenser. Its absolutely doable as a shitty stovepipe that will one day cause problems :)
Registry hack please.
Microsoft is from guys to guys, fuck you all
Offering something for download doesn't mean it's not dead in technological terms.
ALSO, this should include everyone who has ever gotten a copy of XP, “free” with a new computer.
To whatever moron rated this "Flamebait":
It's not, you fucking MICROSHILL.
WE FUCKING PAID FOR MICROSOFT'S GODDAMNED, NON-SECURE-BY-DESIGN, DELIBERATELY BROKEN, INTENTIONALLY INFERIOR, SHITTY SOFTWARE, IN REAL ACTUAL MONEY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Microsoft ROBBED every customer it's ever had. It's entire leadership from inception to today should be in FUCKING PRISON
It's not flame-bait to say so. It's a valid, legitimate opinion, shared by many; likely it's shared by MOST of the F/L-OSS community, much of the GNU and Linux communities, pretty much any and everyone who has been fucked over by goddamned motherfucking MICROSOFT, which means at this point, if you live indoors, and not in a fucking cave, probably you too. Statistically speaking.
So fuck you, whoever you are, you useless, paid-off, dickless piece of shit.
NOW THIS, MAYBE, IS FLAMEBAIT. The original was not. Now you know the difference.
(There should be an official mechanism on slashdot for protesting or appealing moderators who abuse their privileges. Because anyone who thought the original post was flame-bait doesn't know what the fuck flame-bait IS.)
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Not only is that legally impossible; it's also a a terrible idea.
Microsoft publishes their support lifecycle, and anyone can find out exactly how long their software will be supported. Occasionally they extend it (as was the case with XP), but they are not obligated to do so.
If treating the end of support like a drop-dead date makes their OS an unappealing purchase... then don't buy it.
When about a 50 million people were compelled to buy Microsoft Windows because it came with their computer, were they made aware of this?
No. This was NOT published anywhere where decades of victims of MS Highway Robbery could have seen it. And “don’t buy it” isn’t an option when every computer maker has been illegally strong armed into including their shitware as a requirement to sell...
Look. MS was successful sued over this. Their malfeasance was proven in a court of law on numerous occasions. But thanks, it seems to governmental corruption or incompetence or a combination of the two, Microfuck was NOT broken up the way they should have been, the way Standard Oil and Ma Bell were.
Your pro-corporate “hey, take it or leave it” attitude ignores the fact that things weren’t always as they are now,
Microsoft had, through practices demonstrated in court to be not only anticompetitive but illegally so, made itself the only game in town.
Your argument would be like telling someone living in LA in the 80s that if you don’t like having to own a car, just get to work some other way.
There are no houses you can afford walking distance to work. The place you work is in LA, so relocating to another town or state isn’t an option. There’s no public transport either TO where in the LA metroplex where you work nor one in the suburbs where you live. Bicycling is not an option because in that time and place, bike lanes were a new idea and not everywhere HAD them.
You simply had to own a car if you wanted to have that job and weren’t conveniently already filthy stinking RICH. SO when someone says, you don’t HAVE to own a car... it’s really pretty laughable.
Sure. Just hitchhike to work. Or walk 7 hours each way twice daily. Carpool (before that was a thing...) which means invent carpooling, basically... also be lucky enough to HAVE someone near enough to you...
Having a Wintel computer (that’s actually what they were called, from WINDOWS and Intel) in the 80s or 90s or even early 00s was ESSENTIAL for a LOT of things and MS parasitically FED off everyone basically.
There wasn’t a legally usable free alternative then, certainly not one anyone was writing software for. BSD wasn’t really a thing yet, UNIX was still proprietary, Apple’s Mac OS was a joke that only worked on Apple’s overpriced computers which mostly people weren’t writing software for either... and Linux (and GNU) wasn’t a thing yet either.
There were no iPads or iPods nor iPhones or iFads or iBlads or even iVlads (what Putin uses). You kids nowadays are spoiled. And you don’t even know it.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.